


Heavy Shackles

by lisachan



Series: Leoverse [285]
Category: Glee
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: When Leo understood what love and wanting could meant to a person, both those feelings were already inextricably bound to the mental picture of his brother.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Leoverse [285]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	Heavy Shackles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this year's COWT #10 LAST WEEK!!!, M6, prompt: _obligations like chains_.

When Leo understood what love and wanting could meant to a person, both those feelings were already inextricably bound to the mental picture of his brother. His position of power within the kingdom, that he had been born with, and his religious responsibilities as a physical materialization of their deities, as Cody himself was, seemed weightless in comparison to that.

He fell asleep every single night thinking about him. He woke up with the trail of dreams with him as a main character still dangling from his eyes. His heart was heavy with such a weight that he couldn’t shake it, life had no meaning if it couldn’t be lived alongside Cody, nothing even made sense if it couldn’t be translated through him as a reason to do anything at all. Leo wanted to play him like a stringed instrument, wanted Cody’s voice to be the song he would leave behind for posterity. He wanted to learn everything that there was to learn about the world on his skin, he wanted to read him like a map, he wanted to draw on him the geography of longing.

That was before most of his studying. He had been raised by his parents, up to that moment, to be nothing but a happy child, and then a happy kid. Cody was and forever would be the one upon whose head the weight of the crown would’ve fallen, eventually, being him their firstborn. Sure, Leo was a king too, as both their Laws and their religion so stated – that no one man could, by himself, righteously conduct the kingdom; as there were two brother gods in the sky, keeping the scale between good and bad balanced, as there had to be two kings on earth, to make sure that balance was kept in good order – but he was second in his birthright, and he never would’ve had to marry if he didn’t feel so inclined, and he wasn’t supposed to always be present at official gatherings, and he wasn’t supposed to conduct religious offerings. He was there to support, to adore, to love. All things he knew how to do quite well.

But when he turned fourteen, and by then he already knew he loved his brother more than he could ever love anyone else in the world, his parents thought it was time for him to prepare himself like a true king should. Cody had already started his studies the year before, and Leo was merely expected to follow.

“But I thought I was only there to help him,” Leo protested, dreading the idea of spending months bent over the immense body of knowledge held safe in the library, a multitude of parchments and decorated manuscripts written in such a small character sometimes he needed to use a magnifying glass to read them through.

His parents had chuckled tenderly and his father had pulled him into an affectionate hug before explaining to him that, yes, sure, he was there to help Cody, but there were proper ways for that to be done, and he had to learn them. 

That’s when he had started learning in much more details and depth what their religion was about, what the Brothers Gods stood for, and that because of them there was some things that were absolutely forbidden, not just for the Kings, but for anyone else.

One of which was loving one’s brother as you would love a lover.

_For the moment your thoughts upon your brother turns impure, the moment you stain that precious, godly, powerful connection with earthly physical needs, the bond is broken, and misfortune is brought upon your house, and your friends, and your fellow citizens._

Leo had to read that passage times and times again to try and make some sense of it. Suddenly, a thing that had been obvious for him up to the moment before, had become unthinkable. A sin. The worst of all.

Yet, he had chosen to discard those words and the admonition they represented. He loved Cody the same way he had always loved him, and nothing bad had ever happened to his family, friends and citizens. The kingdom had lived in peace for years, his parents had been happy, Cody had been growing wonderfully, both in his role and in his skin. If this had gone on without a wrinkle for so many years, why would it have to change all of a sudden just because he had finally read a few lines on a book?

But today he stands motionless and speechless as his parents are deposed in the earth, dead. Cody’s crying by his side, he’s inconsolable, he’s broken, and his tears are silent only because he’s strong enough not to let a sound.

Leo doesn’t cry – he knows he doesn’t have a right to it. He doesn’t deserve it. Because he knows whose fault it is if, after all, the wrath of the Brothers Gods has descended upon them.

And for the first time in his life he can truly feel the weight of the shackles of his obligations around his wrists.


End file.
